Windows: Documentation for bin\*.exe

Windows: Documentation for bin\*.exe

[Reiner Steib]

[Disclaimer: I don't have Windows here now to reproduce or lookup the
details, so please correct me if my memory is failing.]

In Windows' file manager (explorer.exe), you can right click on a file
and select "Open With..." (re-translated from German, I'm not sure
about the exact wording in English) to choose an application for
opening this file (only this time or for the future for this
extension).  When I want to select Emacs, I browse to the Emacs\bin
directory and find 14 executables [1].  Okay, I can figure out that
the most promising are emacs.exe, emacsclient.exe, emacsclientw.exe,
and runemacs.exe.  runemacs.exe in contrast to emacs.exe doesn't open
a cmd-shell window ("DOS box").  If I have already evaled
`server-start', emacsclient and emacsclientw would be suitable, but
which one?  So I did some trial and error and somehow found the right
one.  But now Explorer remembered all Emacs executables and in its
selection dialog box (after "Open with...") presents severals
executables but they all have the very same description ("GNU Emacs
for Windows NT/95/98/2000/ME/XP" or similar; FileDescription in
nt/emacs.rc maybe?) and icon (the new Emacs icon).  I can't figure out
which one is emacs.exe, emacsclient.exe or emacsclientw.exe.  Only
trial and error?  (BTW, how to delete existing entries in "Open
With..."?)

I search for hints in the manual ("grep -nH -e
'runemacs\|emacsclient\|\.exe' msdo*.texi" doesn't give only two
unrelated hits) and nt/, but I couldn't find anything related the
documentation.

Suggestions:

(a) A README file explaining the purpose of the various *.exe files
    (especially *emacs*.exe) in the bin directory.

(b) The description appearing in the "Open with..." dialog should tell
    about the purpose of the binary (or at least display name of the
    executable).

Bye, Reiner.

[1] c:/Programme/GNU/Emacs/bin$ ls -1 *.exe
addpm.exe
cmdproxy.exe
ctags.exe
ddeclient.exe
digest-doc.exe
ebrowse.exe
emacs.exe
emacsclient.exe
emacsclientw.exe
etags.exe
hexl.exe
movemail.exe
runemacs.exe
sorted-doc.exe

-- 
       ,,,
      (o o)
---ooO-(_)-Ooo---  |  PGP key available  |  http://rsteib.home.pages.de/

Re: Windows: Documentation for bin\*.exe

[Reiner Steib]

Hi,

I didn't get any reply to the message quoted below.

Reiner.

On Mon, Aug 27 2007, Reiner Steib wrote:

> [Disclaimer: I don't have Windows here now to reproduce or lookup the
> details, so please correct me if my memory is failing.]
>
> In Windows' file manager (explorer.exe), you can right click on a file
> and select "Open With..." (re-translated from German, I'm not sure
> about the exact wording in English) to choose an application for
> opening this file (only this time or for the future for this
> extension).  When I want to select Emacs, I browse to the Emacs\bin
> directory and find 14 executables [1].  Okay, I can figure out that
> the most promising are emacs.exe, emacsclient.exe, emacsclientw.exe,
> and runemacs.exe.  runemacs.exe in contrast to emacs.exe doesn't open
> a cmd-shell window ("DOS box").  If I have already evaled
> `server-start', emacsclient and emacsclientw would be suitable, but
> which one?  So I did some trial and error and somehow found the right
> one.  But now Explorer remembered all Emacs executables and in its
> selection dialog box (after "Open with...") presents severals
> executables but they all have the very same description ("GNU Emacs
> for Windows NT/95/98/2000/ME/XP" or similar; FileDescription in
> nt/emacs.rc maybe?) and icon (the new Emacs icon).  I can't figure out
> which one is emacs.exe, emacsclient.exe or emacsclientw.exe.  Only
> trial and error?  (BTW, how to delete existing entries in "Open
> With..."?)
>
> I search for hints in the manual ("grep -nH -e
> 'runemacs\|emacsclient\|\.exe' msdo*.texi" doesn't give only two
> unrelated hits) and nt/, but I couldn't find anything related the
> documentation.
>
> Suggestions:
>
> (a) A README file explaining the purpose of the various *.exe files
>     (especially *emacs*.exe) in the bin directory.
>
> (b) The description appearing in the "Open with..." dialog should tell
>     about the purpose of the binary (or at least display name of the
>     executable).
>
> Bye, Reiner.
>
> [1] c:/Programme/GNU/Emacs/bin$ ls -1 *.exe
> addpm.exe
> cmdproxy.exe
> ctags.exe
> ddeclient.exe
> digest-doc.exe
> ebrowse.exe
> emacs.exe
> emacsclient.exe
> emacsclientw.exe
> etags.exe
> hexl.exe
> movemail.exe
> runemacs.exe
> sorted-doc.exe

Re: Windows: Documentation for bin\*.exe

[Jason Rumney]

Reiner Steib wrote:
>> Suggestions:
>>
>> (a) A README file explaining the purpose of the various *.exe files
>>     (especially *emacs*.exe) in the bin directory.
>>
>> (b) The description appearing in the "Open with..." dialog should tell
>>     about the purpose of the binary (or at least display name of the
>>     executable).
>>     

Hi Reiner,

Sorry for missing this the first time around. I have added a short 
description of each exe file to README.W32 with pointers to the 
appropriate section of the manual where appropriate. I'll look at your 
second suggestion later.

Re: Windows: Documentation for bin\*.exe

[Eli Zaretskii]

> Date: Fri, 01 Feb 2008 00:17:57 +0000
> From: Jason Rumney <jasonr@gnu.org>
> 
> Sorry for missing this the first time around. I have added a short 
> description of each exe file to README.W32 with pointers to the 
> appropriate section of the manual where appropriate.

Thanks, but I'm not sure it is appropriate to describe in README.W32
programs that are not specific to the w32 build, such as etags,
ebrowse, hexl, movemail, etc.  If these should be documented (hexl and
movemail are internal to Emacs, for example, and are not supposed to
be run directly by the user), it should be done in a file that isn't
specific to Windows.

How about adding a special README.something file that would describe
all these auxiliary programs, including those specific to Windows, and
be installed by "make install"?

Re: Windows: Documentation for bin\*.exe

[Jason Rumney]

Eli Zaretskii wrote:
> Thanks, but I'm not sure it is appropriate to describe in README.W32
> programs that are not specific to the w32 build, such as etags,
> ebrowse, hexl, movemail, etc.
The descriptions basically consist of pointers to the appropriate 
chapter of the Emacs manual.

> If these should be documented (hexl and
> movemail are internal to Emacs, for example, and are not supposed to
> be run directly by the user), it should be done in a file that isn't
> specific to Windows.
>   

Where would you install such a file? On Windows, Emacs is installed in 
its own directory, which is conventional for Windows, but on other 
platforms the programs are scattered between /usr/bin and 
/usr/libexec/emacs/22.1.90 (or /usr/local/... or /opt/...). I think 
users of other platforms expect to find such information in manpages or 
the texinfo manual, where they are already documented.

Re: Windows: Documentation for bin\*.exe

[Reiner Steib]

On Fri, Feb 01 2008, Jason Rumney wrote:

> Reiner Steib wrote:
>>> Suggestions:
>>>
>>> (a) A README file explaining the purpose of the various *.exe files
>>>     (especially *emacs*.exe) in the bin directory.
>>>
>>> (b) The description appearing in the "Open with..." dialog should tell
>>>     about the purpose of the binary (or at least display name of the
>>>     executable).
[...]
> I have added a short description of each exe file to README.W32 with
> pointers to the appropriate section of the manual where appropriate.

Thanks, that's helpful (and it is good that README.W32 is included in
the zip file as emacs-22.*/README.W32, too).

> I'll look at your second suggestion later.

Did you find time to look into this?  (Maybe Michael Schierl's posting
<http://article.gmane.org/gmane.emacs.devel/87962> is helpful?)

Bye, Reiner.
-- 
       ,,,
      (o o)
---ooO-(_)-Ooo---  |  PGP key available  |  http://rsteib.home.pages.de/

Re: Windows: Documentation for bin\*.exe

[Jason Rumney]

Reiner Steib wrote:
>> I'll look at your second suggestion later.
>>     
>
> Did you find time to look into this?  (Maybe Michael Schierl's posting
> <http://article.gmane.org/gmane.emacs.devel/87962> is helpful?)
>   

I will defer this until after 22.2 is released, as it requires changes 
to the build process and new files.

Re: Windows: Documentation for bin\*.exe

[Reiner Steib]

On Sun, Feb 24 2008, Jason Rumney wrote:

> Reiner Steib wrote:
>> Did you find time to look into this?  (Maybe Michael Schierl's posting
>> <http://article.gmane.org/gmane.emacs.devel/87962> is helpful?)
>
> I will defer this until after 22.2 is released, as it requires changes to the
> build process and new files.

I'll add it to "WINDOWS SUPPORT BUGS (for 22.3 or later)." in
FOR-RELEASE:

,----
| ** Description in the "Open with..." dialog should tell about the purpose
| of the binary (or at least display name of the executable).
| http://thread.gmane.org/v9myprs3u4.fsf@marauder.physik.uni-ulm.de
`----

Bye, Reiner.
-- 
       ,,,
      (o o)
---ooO-(_)-Ooo---  |  PGP key available  |  http://rsteib.home.pages.de/

Re: Windows: Documentation for bin\*.exe

[Michael Schierl]

On Thu, 31 Jan 2008 22:54:02 +0100, Reiner Steib wrote:

>> In Windows' file manager (explorer.exe), you can right click on a file
>> and select "Open With..." (re-translated from German, I'm not sure
>> about the exact wording in English) 

The internal name of this action (in the Explorer's object model) is
"openas", but some registry keys suggest that "OpenWith" is also ok (maybe
it was renamed?).

>> But now Explorer remembered all Emacs executables and in its
>> selection dialog box (after "Open with...") presents severals
>> executables but they all have the very same description ("GNU Emacs
>> for Windows NT/95/98/2000/ME/XP" or similar; FileDescription in
>> nt/emacs.rc maybe?) and icon (the new Emacs icon).

Windows will show there the content of the VersionInfo resource record (the
one that is displayed in the propery sheet tab "Version" of te .EXE file).
It depends on the compiler where that one is stored.

This has been changed in Windows XP or 2000 (don't remember which one),
before, it showed the EXE name. This led to interesting results, like
opening zip archives with "the most powerful freeware archive extracting
utility" or websites with "the fastest browser on earth".

But software authors learned from it and stopped writing marketing slogans
into the VersionInfo resource :-)

>> (BTW, how to delete existing entries in "Open With..."?)

Use the registry editor. Depending on whether you did it with Admin
privileges or without, you will have to check

HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\.###\OpenWithList

or

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\FileExts\.###\OpenWithList

Both can contain keys ("folders") or values ("entries" in the right pane)
with EXE names, paths, or OLE class IDs in it. There may also be a MRU
entry that orders the other entries. Just delete what you do not need and
remove the entries from the MRU entry as well (if present). This is for
Windows XP, the key might be at a diferent location for other versions, but
doing a search for a key with exact name "OpenWithList" should point you to
the right location. Or, alternatively, open the file with 10 other
programs, in fact rotating the "old" entries out.

Michael